Starting this year, the Taipei American School’s IT Department instituted new changes to the printing system to help with both economical and environmental problems. However, many students and faculty find the new modifications confusing.
After hearing about the creation of new ID cards this summer, the IT Department wanted to come up with a solution to make printing easier by integrating the cards into the system. 
Through the upgrading of PaperCut, copiers could work off the sensors of ID cards,  conveniently cutting down expenses since printing out of a copier is less expensive in comparison to printers. 
Besides, the new swiping ID cards function gives administrators access to statistics on how much paper the school is using as a whole. Within this data, it gives information on how many trees were cut down and the amount of carbon dioxide released as a result due to the school’s usage of paper. 
“If you added up all the employees and all of the students from K to grade 12, you each got 1,500 copies of paper,” Mr. Hudkins, the Chief Informations Officer, said.
However, with these amends, many incoming freshmen are having trouble adapting to this system. In comparison to last year’s freshmen, upper school English teacher Ms.Tan said, “Every single year, a bunch of ninth-graders are like, ‘Oh how can I print,’ but there were more this year who were confused.” 
“The old system was perfectly fine but I thought that the addition of the ID card is kind of confusing to me,” student Karina W. (‘24) said. 
Mr. Kiang, the Upper School Electronic Systems & Information Specialist and Teacher, also noted his observations about the reactions of students. 
“There’s quite a bit of confusion about the new system and the changing of different tier systems,” Mr. Kiang said. “[The IT department] is still in the process of improving through that.” 
Nevertheless, printers are still essential in a learning setting. “I actually really have to use printers every day but I would try to use it less,” Karina said. 
“If [these changes] result in people printing less and still being able to do the work they need to do, then save a tree, save a little electricity, save a little ink, save a little toner,” Mr.Hudkins said.  “Part of my objective as an educator is to help [students] learn how to be continuously adaptable, especially in this era of technology.”